


Kicking Ass and Taking Names

by JoulesIsIronic



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Brotp, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoulesIsIronic/pseuds/JoulesIsIronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate and Tommy go out for a night on the town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicking Ass and Taking Names

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fantasyworld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasyworld/gifts).



> A birthday!fic for my dearest Brittany. Love you, lady! Hope you like it!

Fighting crime is a lot like drinking at bars, Kate thinks as she looses another arrow: you can do it alone, but it’s not nearly as much fun.

Another thug zooms by where she’s positioned atop the Smithston building, firing shots and missing by a wide margin. He’s wearing an honest-to-God jetpack. A jetpack! Though, she has to admit, it looks less structurally-sound and more fifth-grade-science-project than she’d feel comfortable wearing, especially with the loose, frayed wires jutting out from the base.

“Where do they even get these things?” Kate whines, her arrow slicing through a very important-looking wire.

A blur of green and silver hurls another joker into a neighboring rooftop. Tommy pauses just long enough to visibly shrug before grabbing one of the jetpack-garbed goonies by the ankle as he attempts to zoom by, and exclaiming a loud, excited, “Yahoo!”

The would-be flyer clearly can’t handle the weight, and the two of them crash into the wall of a taller building with a resounding, _Oof_.

Kate glances down to makes sure they’re not dead, and when she sees that they’re alright, she mutters sweetly, loud enough for him to hear, “Have a nice fall?”

“Har-har,” Tommy mumbles, brushing off some debris and flipping her the bird. The thug behind him stirs. Kate fires the stink!arrowtip and turns back towards the open sky, spying for more of the would-be thieves, allowing a smirk when she hears a fit of coughing and Tommy’s incredulous, “ _Really?!_ ”

Kate knows a few of them managed to grab some jewels before she and Tommy caught up – interrupted from their night of drunken frivolity – so she keeps her eyes peeled for jetpacks, guns, and glittering jewels; well, and looks of dumbfounded vacancy, because she caught glimpses of their faces before they scattered and they looked awfully blank. Besides, it takes ovaries of steel (or a serious lack of brains) to rob a jewelry store known to be in the vicinity of a police substation (two blocks away) and in a city known rambunctious superhero teams.

There’s a _wiz_ and Tommy skids to a stop beside her, wheezing and glaring through his goggles. “That was uncalled for,” he moans.

“Karma, bitch,” Kate says, zeroing in on a lone jetpack-soaring dumbass. “Payback for abandoning me to that obnoxious fratboy at the bar. I had to literally throw a drink in his face to get him to shut up.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “He wasn’t that bad.”

“He told me that I looked like I’d make, and I quote, ‘a real tasty sandwich’ and that he wanted to, and I also quote, ‘motorboat the hell’ out of my ‘super fine boobies.’”

“Okay, he was pretty bad,” he allows. “But you gotta admit it was funny.”

Kate raises an eyebrow.

“Well, for me. Anyway, is that dude actually serious?” Tommy gestures at the extremely obvious jetpack-flyer who’s rapidly descending towards an empty patch of ground.

“Looks like. And I’m pretty sure that bag dangling conspicuously from his arm is our missing bag of goodies.”

Tommy _hmms_. “He’s actually getting a decent distance away. I’d be mildly impressed if he was up against cops and not, well, us.”

“Nope, they’d still be able to track him down pretty easily, I think. Just look for the idiot in the jetpack.” She takes a step towards the edge. “Catch me,” she says, and lets herself fall, hearing a muted “ _crap_ ” from Tommy as she accelerates down.

Kate withdraws an arrow from her quiver, aiming and firing. It sails right through the bag, snagging it and embedding deeply into the brick across the way. Just as fluidly, she fires a second shot, slicing though some more of those very important looking wires connecting the power to the boosters.

The thug screams, wide eyed and terrified, and lands with a thump on the pavement. He was only about ten feet off the ground anyway. Baby.

Warm arms wrap around her waist and Tommy hoists her over his shoulder, patting her on the back of her legs condescendingly. The world is a blur for a few solid seconds before he slows to a jog, keeping her propped on her shoulder as he decelerates.

“Perfect shot as always, _Hawkette_!”

Kate jabs him in the back with one of her arrows. “Call me that again and the next one goes up your…”

With that, he drops her in an unceremonious lump on the road.

“Rude,” Kate huffs, brushing dirt off her knees.

Tommy sticks out his tongue. “Oh, and, did you ‘have a nice fall?’”

“Still more graceful than yours,” she says, shoving him. The police cruisers are finally starting to arrive, so they take off, leaving the officers to take care of the cleanup.

They end up in the park, sprawled across a park bench. It’s quiet now, and technically the park is closed at this hour, but she’d just love to see the cops try to arrest _them_.

Beside her, Tommy sighs. “What a birthday, am I right?”

Kate shrugs, a soft smile playing on her lips. “You’d be surprised by how much better this one’s been than some others I could think of.”

She closes her eyes, leaning back tiredly into the cold wood of the bench until she feels something small and square drop into her lap. Kate eyes it curiously, prodding at the slapstick wrapping.

“What’s this?”

Tommy eyes her through his goggles, unimpressed. “What do you think?”

“Is it a trap?” She feels the need to ask. It wouldn’t be the first stink bomb she’d unwrapped.

“Just open it,” he drawls, rolling his eyes.

Tentatively, she does, peeling off the eccentric poke-a-dots to find a tiny, black jewelry box.

“Oh, pretty,” she comments, popping the box open to find an elegant, silver bracelet. “You shouldn’t have.” Then she frowns, slightly. “Wait, don’t take this the wrong way but, did you steal this?”

The boy huffs, crossing his arms. Then – in a mock angry voice – he sputters, “I’m honestly offended. What would give you that idea?”

“Well, when we met it was in the process of breaking you out of juvie,” Kate points out.

“Fair,” he admits, just as she notices folded paper pressed into the creases of the box.

It unravels in her hands, text on both sides. She reads the front and laughs. “Aw, it’s the receipt. I’m touched!”

He gestures with his finger for her to turn it around, smiling smugly.

She reads:

_To my favorite Hawk ~~ette~~ eye,_

_I thought we could make friendship bracelets and braid each other’s hair, but then I remembered how lame that would be, so I bought you a stupid trinket thing instead. You can think of my handsome, perfectly-sculpted physique whenever you wear it. And also, how dare you assume I stole this. SHAME. (And if you haven’t, in fact, accused me of thievery, well, I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry, ‘cause I’m sure you will at some point. And, anyway, I’m going to act under the assumption that you did accuse me of such crimes, in which case I say to you, dear miss: SUCK IT._

_Oh, and Happy Birthday or something, I guess._

_-Speed_

Kate presses her lips together, stifling a laugh, and solemnly says, “I’ll cherish it forever.”

In the distance an explosion sounds. Kate glances at Tommy, who in turn glances at her. Then he’s on his feet, extending his arm towards her.

“Ready to kick some ass?” he asks, smirking.

She takes his hand and allows him to pull her up. “Always.”

Arms linked, they run toward the fire.


End file.
